“Can she really handle it? If our daughter keeps hanging out with that kind of person, will she be led astray…”
Mother Bai clutched her handkerchief, looking as if she were on the verge of tears.
To an outsider, it would have seemed as though she were the one who had suffered a great injustice.
“Cry, cry, cry—all you know how to do is cry. Let’s go. As things stand, there’s no other way. Ranran refusing to come home isn’t a solution; perhaps we really do owe her too much.”
Father Bai dismissively waved his hand and walked ahead.
The woman followed closely behind him as they walked one after the other, Father Bai busy sending messages.
……
On the other side, having returned home, Bai Ranran kicked off her slippers.
She took an unopened bottle of milk from the fridge, took a heavy gulp, and headed to the sofa.
Kicking her slippers aside, she let her crystalline feet dangle.
Picking up her phone, her focus returned to the screen.
She tapped away, and seeing that Jiang Ran’s chat box remained silent, she sent another message.
“Jiang Ran, are you free right now?”
After the message was sent, it was met with total silence.
But Bai Ranran didn’t give up; she kept tapping her phone, waiting for when Jiang Ran might reply.
During this time, she went down to feed the cats several times.
Some of them came to her side, reaching out their paws to lick her hand.
After a short while, the beep-beep-beep of a notification sounded.
Bai Ranran ignored the eating cats and hurried to grab her phone, finding that it really was a message from Jiang Ran.
She felt a secret wave of relief.
“That’s wonderful.”
Bai Ranran unlocked the screen and saw that Jiang Ran had sent:
“I’m cooking. What’s up?”
“You know how to cook?”
Bai Ranran asked aimlessly.
For the moment, she wasn’t sure what else to send; she just tapped the screen blankly, as if trying to make up for something.
“Of course. Anyway, you go ahead and stay busy with whatever you have going on over there. It might take me a long while to finish cooking.”
“I see. Jiang Ran, the soap you bought me last time is very good.”
Bai Ranran turned her gaze to the red bag on the cabinet, which contained several unopened bars of soap.
“That’s good then. If you run out, tell me in time, okay? I’ll get some more ready for you.”
“Okay!”
Bai Ranran nodded vigorously and couldn’t help but ask, “Um, Jiang Ran… you promised to be my friend last time. Does that still count?”
Bai Ranran thought back to her verbal agreement with Jiang Ran.
Although Jiang Ran had agreed to be her friend, the thought of their hasty promise under those circumstances made Bai Ranran feel a bit uneasy.
Still busy in the kitchen, Jiang Ran put down her phone and saw that sentence.
She was a bit puzzled as well.
After a moment’s thought, she replied:
“I guess so. If something comes up, I’ll help, but if it’s something too difficult, I won’t be able to.”
“That’s enough. That’s more than enough. Thank you!”
Like a child who had just received candy, Bai Ranran clutched her phone tightly.
She didn’t send any more messages to Jiang Ran.
“Geez, Ranran is so strange today.”
Jiang Ran placed the cooked dishes on the table.
While eating, she scrolled through her Moments and noticed that Su Wanqing seemed to have gone to a high-end gift shop today.
The caption was: “Preparing a gift for someone precious. I hope she likes it.”
“Someone precious?”
It suddenly dawned on Jiang Ran—could it be that the female lead was starting to follow the plot?
After all, Su Wanqing was the absolute female lead of this “galgame.”
If the female lead was starting to follow the plot, it meant the story was finally getting on the right track.
After all, there was no way the gift was for her.
So, Jiang Ran gave it a like, considering it a form of encouragement for Su Wanqing.
After finishing that, Jiang Ran closed her phone and continued eating.
In her apartment, Su Wanqing, who was still editing her Moments, opened her phone and noticed someone had liked her post.
When she saw it was Jiang Ran, her cheeks turned slightly warm.
She gave instructions to the bodyguards following her:
“Pack them quickly. Don’t worry about the quantity—I want all of these. They must not be damaged, understood?”
“Yes, Eldest Miss!”
As the bodyguards busied themselves, Su Wanqing’s mood fluctuated.
She went to her desk and began organizing the speech draft she had to write.
She was also required to host the upcoming freshman gala at school, so what she wrote was of vital importance.
Su Wanqing held her breath and began organizing the tasks at hand.
But as she wrote more and more, her thoughts uncontrollably drifted away, like a runaway horse.
“This is so annoying.”
Su Wanqing hadn’t expected her work efficiency to be this low; she had been writing for ages with no progress.
Clutching her phone, she scrolled through her Moments for a while and saw posts from others.
First and foremost was a post from Tao Xixue—a behind-the-scenes shot from a photo shoot.
“Returning to campus, I wonder if I’ll run into her?”
Su Wanqing didn’t usually care what Tao Xixue posted; after all, posting on Moments was perfectly normal.
But gradually, she noticed something was off.
Su Wanqing tapped the photo to enlarge the avatar.
Although the avatar in the picture was blurred out, why did that figure look more familiar the more she looked at it?
It felt like she had seen it somewhere before.
She continued scanning down until she saw those legs.
Su Wanqing was shocked—how could they look so much like Jiang Ran’s?
With a trembling heart, Su Wanqing sent a message to Jiang Ran: “Jiang Ran, where are you right now?”
“At home cooking, why?”
Jiang Ran put down her spatula.
Hearing the notification, she came from the kitchen to the living room.
As soon as she opened her phone, she saw Su Wanqing’s message.
A new reply appeared on the screen:
“I see. Then where were you just now? There are a lot of bad people on the streets lately, and the city center is quite chaotic. You shouldn’t have gone there, right?”
“No. I just got back from the hospital. President, did you see something happen?”
Su Wanqing breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed Jiang Ran didn’t know about this matter.
That was good…
“It’s nothing. I’m just telling you it’s been chaotic lately. Protect yourself. If you have any difficulties, don’t carry them alone. Call me, okay?”
Jiang Ran pursed her lips and nodded.
“Okay.”
Beyond that, she felt a bit depressed.
she couldn’t figure out what Su Wanqing was talking about; she felt like the other girl was being a bit over-concerned.
Could it be that Su Wanqing was actually a really good person?!
Just as Jiang Ran was completely bewildered, an unknown number popped up at the top of her phone.
Dazed, Jiang Ran answered the call.
A gentle female voice came through the receiver.
“You are Jiang Ran, correct?”
The voice sounded very experienced, but Jiang Ran had no recollection of anyone with that tone.
“I… I am. Who are you?”
“I am the President of Rongnan University, Xu Huan. Student Jiang, if you are free, please come to the conference room in Building 3 tomorrow. The school has some matters we’d like to understand from you. If you have classes, you can ask your instructors for a leave of absence.”